When the Messenger is Self-Affirmed
The young Saudi Arabian immigrant who drove me to the airport said his name is Osama.
"Do you take grief for your name?" I asked as the hotel van headed to the Columbus airport.
"Only from ignorant people," the 21-year-old chemical engineering graduate replied in Americanized English.
His serene sense of self impressed me enormously. There was no hesitancy about his Muslim faith or his family's heritage during a time of orange alert.
"After 9/11, my friends said I should go by the name 'Sam,' but I said 'Call me Osama'."
"Your confidence and self-affirmation will take you far in life," I told him as he dropped me off in front of the Delta ticket counter.
"Thanks," he replied with a broad, boyish grin.
The night before, I was with the Executive Diversity Council of Battelle, a highly-respected research organization that specializes in homeland security, health science, and technology. In the room with the senior executives were a handful of gay and lesbian employees. At one point during my presentation I spotted one of the most confident-appearing lesbians crying.
The opportunity provided itself later to talk about the amount of armor that is required to work in an environment in which you feel "tolerated" rather than affirmed.
"You have a short fuse, don't you?" I asked her in front of the others.
"I do," she acknowledged. "I get worn down by the need to daily tone down who I am."
The former Marine colonel who had insisted that I be brought in to speak at the company said that he had no idea how much people felt the need to hide who they were.
We all talked about how important coming out was to the individual and to the firm, and how the only way to be personally and professionally successful was by being open about your sexual orientation.
Heterosexuals take their lead from gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people on how comfortable to be with the topic. Several people came up to me afterwards and said that my self-confidence as a gay man enabled them to relax and listen comfortably.
I explained that being 60 and having spent my entire adult life educating others about gay issues had a lot to do with my self-confidence.
When I came out in 1974, I had the same self-assurance as Osama, my driver to the airport. I succeeded in large part because of my sense of basic goodness. People took their lead from me. If Brian felt good about being gay, then they could relax.
What they didn't know is that my fuse eventually got very short too. Many times I wanted to sit and cry in my hotel room after a presentation because I was so tired and felt so worn down by the need to explain myself and by the experience of being tolerated rather than valued. I never cried in front of others and I never revealed my short fuse.
The good news is that I broke through the pain, like an athlete who comes out the other side of the thoughts of quitting. I got to the point in my life when the self love, acceptance, and confidence was strong enough and consistent enough to not be impacted by the awareness that I was being accommodated rather than valued.
I have always believed that "the messenger" is the message. My message for the past three decades has been that being gay is good, natural, and not an impediment to happiness. I feel that I have had success in communicating that the only true happiness available to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people is outside of the closet. It's a rough, challenging journey out of all of the doors that are hinged on our opening to freedom, but the tears and frustrations are worth it.
Now, though, the message of the messenger, it seems, is that there is true joy for all of us available when we no longer have to work at self-acceptance and affirmation -- that anyone can come to truly love their lives regardless of the accommodating attitudes of others.
Osama has a long life journey ahead of him in which he will help others get past their fear of Saudis and Muslims and people with fear-laced names. I suspect though that he will have his share of tears of frustration and exhaustion. His fuse will get short. But if he continues to nurture his youthful self-confidence, he will eventually break through the pain and provide his contemporaries a model of true serenity.
